Plates And Plate Boundaries

Question 1

How many plates are there?

Answer 1

7 enormous plates

12 less enormous plates

Question 2

What do we call the way that plates move?

Answer 2

Continental drift

Question 3

What are plates?

Answer 3

They are chunks of crust that float on the magma in the mantle below.
It is earth’s hard outer part broken into big slabs which move around

Question 4

What plate do you live on?

Answer 4

The Eurasian plate

Question 5

Why does the UK have no active volcanoes?

Answer 5

The uk had no active volcanoes because it is not near a destructive plate boundary

Question 6

What evidence is there that tectonic plates move?

Answer 6

1. New crust is forming in the ocean from underwater volcanoes eg at MAR
2. Some plates used to fit together and there was only one continent
3. Coal formed in tropical swamps now in temperate countries like uk
4. identical land animal fossils found in rocks in different continents- couldn’t have swum ocean so continents must have been joined
5. identical rocks need same climate but found in different climates eg Africa and Antarctica

Question 7

Explain the different type of plate boundaries

Answer 7

1. Destructive or compressional plate boundary - plates move towards each other denser oceanic slips below lighter continental crust. Oceanic slips into mantle melts in subduction zone. Energy may cause earthquake and rising lava may cause volcanoes. Continental crust crumples into cold mountains eg. Eurasian & Pacific plate, Nazca & South American plate.
2. Constructive or tensional plate boundary - plates move away from each other usually under ocean, gap filled by magma from mantle to make volcanoes sometimes making islands e.g. mid-Atlantic ridges, North America plate, Iceland & mid-Atlantic ridge, Eurasian plate.
3. Conservative plate boundary - plates slide past each other in same or opposite direction, passive margins. Pressure builds until
   plates jerk and land crumpled and rigid e.g. San Andreas fault

Question 8

What is magma?

What is lava?

Answer 8

Magma is molten rock in mantle

Lava is name given to molten rock

Question 9

What and where is the ring of fire, the ring of fire, the ring of fire?

Answer 9

The Pacific ring of fire ru s along the edge of the Pacific plate from the coasts of western America round to Eastern Asia